Church Leaders Respond to Floyd Killing

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Catholic Church leaders across the country are responding to the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of police and reflecting on structural racism in the United States. Below find selections from some of their thoughts.

The video of George Floyd in police custody Monday evening is gut wrenching and deeply disturbing. The sadness and pain are intense. Let us pray for comfort for his grieving family and friends, peace for a hurting community and prudence while the process moves forward. We need a full investigation that results in rightful accountability and veritable justice.

Particularly at this time when human fragility has been brought into focus by the Covid-19 pandemic, we are called to respect the worth and dignity of each individual, whether they be civilians in need of protection or law enforcement officers charged with providing that protection. All human life is sacred. Please join our Catholic community in praying for George Floyd and his family, and working for that day when “love and truth will meet [and] justice and peace will kiss” (Psalm 85).

– Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis.

In astonishment, we are seeing the reactions of people across the United States as they express feelings of frustration, hurt, and anger in their cry for justice for George Floyd, whom we painfully watched being suffocated in front of our eyes on video in Minneapolis, Minnesota this past week. Many of us remember similar incidents in our history that accompanied the Civil Rights Movement, where we repeatedly saw Black Americans viciously brutalized by police on television and in newspaper photos.  Those historic moments helped to rouse our national conscience to the African American experience in the United States and now, in 2020, we tragically still see repeated incidents of police brutality against African Americans.  We find ourselves in this national moment again with the awakening of our conscience by heartbreaking photos and video that clearly confirm that racism still endures in our country. On television and in social media, we are observing an overflow of pain felt acutely in the African American community and shared by too many other communities…. This moment calls us to be the Church of hope that Jesus Christ created us to be in a world full of pain and despair. We pray for a new Pentecost:  a renewal of love, justice and truth in our hearts.  We are called to do justice and love goodness in order to walk humbly with God….

– Archbishop Wilton Gregory, the Archdiocese of Washington.

[The Catholic Labor Network is based in the Archdiocese of Washington; Archbishop Gregory is one of a handful of African-American bishops. CLICK HERE to read Archbishop Gregory’s statement in its entirety.]

The killing of George Floyd was senseless and brutal, a sin that cries out to heaven for justice. How is it possible that in America, a black man’s life can be taken from him while calls for help are not answered, and his killing is recorded as it happens?

I am praying for George Floyd and his loved ones, and on behalf of my brother bishops, I share the outrage of the black community and those who stand with them in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and across the country. The cruelty and violence he suffered does not reflect on the majority of good men and women in law enforcement, who carry out their duties with honor. We know that. And we trust that civil authorities will investigate his killing carefully and make sure those responsible are held accountable.

We should all understand that the protests we are seeing in our cities reflect the justified frustration and anger of millions of our brothers and sisters who even today experience humiliation, indignity, and unequal opportunity only because of their race or the color of their skin. It should not be this way in America. Racism has been tolerated for far too long in our way of life.

It is true what Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, that riots are the language of the unheard. We should be doing a lot of listening right now.

– Archbishop José H. Gomez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Archbishop Gomez also serves as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

We are broken-hearted, sickened, and outraged to watch another video of an African American man being killed before our very eyes. What’s more astounding is that this is happening within mere weeks of several other such occurrences. This is the latest wake-up call that needs to be answered by each of us in a spirit of determined conversion.

Racism is not a thing of the past or simply a throwaway political issue to be bandied about when convenient. It is a real and present danger that must be met head on. As members of the Church, we must stand for the more difficult right and just actions instead of the easy wrongs of indifference. We cannot turn a blind eye to these atrocities and yet still try to profess to respect every human life. We serve a God of love, mercy, and justice….

This joint statement was issued by the Chairs of seven USCCB Committees, ranging from the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development to the Ad Hoc Committee on Racism to the Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

Who is the Catholic Labor Network? Meet Catherine Orr, Social Ministry Coordinator

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CLN Recording Secretary Catherine Orr also serves as Program Coordinator for the Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors.

Catherine Orr has been working with marginalized communities for many years and has embodied the call of Catholic Social Teaching. While attending Marquette, she was doing a service learning project in which she worked at a group home for at-risk boys. She worked on anger management with the boys but was forbidden from mentioning anything related to religion, which she found difficult because forgiveness in foundational to all faith traditions. She wanted to continue to help the marginalized and the poor but wanted to make her faith a more explicit part of this work.  This led her to the Department of Living Justice in the Diocese of Green Bay where she became the diocesan director running the St. John the Evangelist Homeless Shelter, Inc. and the Micah Daytime Resource Center for people struggling with homelessness. During this time, she saw the struggles of immigrant workers in the local agricultural sector, which led her to become active in immigrant issues. She worked in coalition with farmers and community activists to fight for immigration reform.

Catherine and her family relocated to Youngstown, Ohio in August 2016, and while living there, she worked in the Social Action Office for Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Cleveland. During this time, she witnessed the mass layoffs at the Lordstown General Motors and saw the devastation on the community as economic security and dignity gave way to opioid abuse. While living in Youngstown, she became the Program Coordinator for the Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors that operates out of a virtual office setting.  Her role is to support social action directors around the country in their ministerial efforts.

Two years later, Catherine and her family returned to southeastern Wisconsin, and she began ministering as the Pastoral Associate at Lumen Christi Parish in Mequon, a position she also continues to hold today. In all of her work, she sees dignified work as a fundamental aspect to Catholic Social Teaching, which continues to inspire and drive her ministry.

America’s Unions List “Five Essentials” for Pandemic Recovery Legislation

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Wednesday June 3 the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions have organized car caravans in cities across the United States to focus on the essential needs of American workers as the pandemic continues. Many of these needs were addressed in the HEROES Act that passed the House of Representatives on May 15. We don’t yet know what the Senate’s sequel to the CARES Act will be, but the labor movement seeks to ensure that any new legislation includes measures to ensure the following:

  1. Keep Front-Line Workers Safe. This means that workers who are providing essential services to us during the pandemic have proper PPE and testing. OSHA must issue an Emergency Temporary Standard covering workplace safety during the pandemic.
  2. Keep Workers Employed and Protect Earned Pension Checks. The Paycheck Protection Program should be extended and we need to make sure it is used to protect jobs during the shutdown, not to boost stock prices. And we need to take action to protect current and future retirees whose pensions have been hit hard by the falling markets.
  3. Keep State and Local Governments, Our Public Schools and the US Postal Service Solvent and Working. The pandemic has blown a hole in state and local government and postal budgets. We cannot allow this to turn into mass layoffs that slash public services and further damage the economy.
  4. Keep America Healthy – Protect Health Insurance for All Workers. Millions of laid-off workers are losing their health insurance in the midst of a public health crisis. The government should step up to assume COBRA payments for these workers to prevent a new health catastrophe.
  5. Keep America Competitive – Hire People to Build Infrastructure. America needs substantial investments in roads, rail and bridges, while tens of millions are out of work. There will never be a better time to invest heavily in the upgrading of America’s transportation, communication and energy infrastructure.

These are indeed economic essentials if America is to recover stronger than ever from the covid pandemic. The Catholic Labor Network joins with the AFL-CIO in calling on the US Senate to address these issues in a sequel to the CARES Act.

Special Mass Comforts, Strengthens Furloughed LA Hotel Workers

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The workers of UNITE HERE Local 11 are hurting. More than ninety-five percent of the members of Local 11 – who work in Los Angeles hotels and restaurants – have lost work as the pandemic shuttered the city’s hospitality sector. So the largely Latino and immigrant workforce did what came naturally: they gathered virtually for a Mass.

The beautiful liturgy was celebrated by Fr. Mike Guitierrez, with members of Local 11 doing the readings and providing the music. Fr. Mike, from St. John the Baptist in Baldwin Park, has had a long relationship with the members of the Local. Twenty years earlier, when he was assigned to a Parish in Santa Monica, several of his parishioners approached him – they worked in area hotels and were trying to organize a union, and asked for his support. “Workers need the support of the Church, and priests involved in labor solidarity have a rich tradition in the United States,” he explained.

Ana Lara, a housekeeper at the Beverly Wiltshire and twenty-two year union steward, read the first reading. “It was so good because we had so many fears. It was time to ask God to help us. We feel more at peace.”

The Spanish-language Mass was livestreamed and a recording can be viewed HERE.

Laudato Si and the Just Transition

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May 24, 2020 marks the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ widely hailed letter on the environment, Laudato Si. The remarkable letter reflects on our materialist culture, pointing to widespread pollution and the threat of global warming. He tells us that the Earth “cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.” [2]

I find it troubling, not merely because I have myself consumed more than my share of the Earth’s goods, nor because of the Holy Father’s scientifically grounded warnings about climate change. As a member of Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), most of my brothers and sisters are employed in construction. And they aren’t spread evenly across the building industry: in fact, they are also disproportionately dependent on the carbon economy.

As union membership has declined over the past several decades, union contractors have virtually disappeared from single-family home construction and renovation. Most of the strip centers and many office buildings are now built by non-union workers who lack the job security, employer-paid health care, and pension benefits enjoyed by skilled but expensive union workers. In contrast, many sectors of civil construction remain largely in the hands of union workers, and much of this sector is indissolubly linked with the carbon economy. Union workers lay the pipelines that carry the crude oil and build the refineries that turn it into gasoline. They maintain the power plants that turn coal into electricity. They build the roads and bridges demanded by our nation’s massive fleet of cars and trucks.

This means that any dramatic action taken to reduce man’s carbon footprint won’t fall equally on all of us in society, but rather will fall particularly hard on my brothers and sisters in the building trades unions. And that’s not all: coal miners, auto workers, power plant operators and many other blue-collar union workers will almost certainly become collateral damage of a transition to renewable energy.

Some progressives, in their zeal for the environment, airily dismiss the concerns of these workers. More than a few even imply that their fears of displacement signify selfishness and greed, a willingness to destroy the planet for a few dollars in their pocket. I doubt the Holy Father would agree, though. Laudato Si critiques a “throwaway culture” that wastes both resources and human beings. If workers in the energy economy rely on these jobs to secure a living wage for themselves and their families, Pope Francis would be the last to casually wave aside their concerns and the first to counsel the need for a just transition.

It won’t do just to say that the new economy will create enough “green jobs” to absorb these workers. After all, the nation is filled with former industrial workers who were assured that with “retraining” they’d quickly find new jobs to replace those lost to automation or globalization. Too many of those workers today are serving hamburgers, stocking Walmart shelves or driving for Uber at a fraction of their former family-supporting salaries – if indeed they have jobs at all. It’s poor sport to retrain an unemployed West Virginia coal miner to install solar panels if the solar panel installations are all in Nevada. It’s not much help to send a laid-off SUV assembly line worker to IT classes if the corporate offices are hiring younger college grads to fill the available positions.

What will a just transition for these workers look like? I don’t know. It may indeed involve, as some have suggested, a Green New Deal, but it will take more than that. Will we need affirmative action programs that prioritize workers displaced from the carbon economy? Costly economic incentives to ensure that  new jobs are located in the same communities where the old jobs disappeared? Increased taxes on the rest of us to support all this? A just transition will require a practical and concrete plan to reemploy those employed in the carbon economy, and that will be expensive. We should all be prepared to sacrifice in order to share that burden equitably.

Minneapolis Janitors strike against Climate Change

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While some unions face a devastating dilemma when their members’ livelihood is tied to the carbon economy, others are finding common ground with environmentalists. Janitors represented by the SEIU and their green movement counterparts have long shared an interest in eliminating toxic cleaning products. Under the banner of Bargaining for the Common Good, SEIU Janitors in the Twin Cities and local environmental activists went a step further in February.

Under Bargaining for the Common Good, unions and community organizations meet together prior to union negotiations and develop a shared set of demands. In this case, SEIU Local 26 sat down with student climate strikers and groups like Environment Minnesota and the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, and incorporated a series of environmental demands into their bargaining priorities alongside wage and benefit improvements. After grueling negotiations and a short strike, the union won not just a raise but creation of a labor-management fund that will look for ways to reduce the environmental footprint of the office buildings they service.

For more information on the strike see Lessons from the First Union Climate Strike in the U.S. in Labor Notes and Bargaining for Climate Justice in The Forge.

Will Eulen use pandemic as a union prevention tool at Washington National Airport?

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Airport workers muster in a car caravan

In Washington DC’s National Airport, a group of immigrant workers from Africa and Latin America has been struggling for years to form a union and bargain for a living wage. Now they are concerned that their employer, the multinational corporation Eulen Group, will use covid-related layoffs to kill the their union drive, targeting union activists.

At National Airport, Eulen employees clean airplane cabins and terminal floors, push wheelchairs and perform other service tasks. Eulen is one of several contractors performing this work at the Washington National and Dulles Airports, but the company has distinguished itself by fighting tooth and nail to prevent its workers from organizing at Washington National — Read more

Who is the Catholic Labor Network? Meet President Phil Tabbita, APWU

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Phil Tabbita is the President of the Catholic Labor Network. In his day job, he is Manager of Negotiation Support and Special Projects for the American Postal Workers Union (APWU).

Phil Tabbita did not begin his working career with the intention of becoming a union activist. He just needed a job while he studied music at Wayne State and the Postal Service was a good job to have. Before going to Wayne State, Phil attended the seminary, but left feeling bitter towards the church. He grew up believing priests were saintly, but in seminary he encountered regular fallible men. He stopped attending church and believed he could structure his faith independently and have his own prayerful relationship with God.

Phil began working for the US Postal Service in 1970 as a window distribution clerk and was active in the organization of the APWU as a number of Postal Service unions merged.  He joined the national APWU staff in 1983 and has been involved in every round of contract negotiations since 1981. Ten years after he had left the church, he was the lead for the union side of an arbitration and a witness offered to lie to help the union’s case. Phil was shocked at the cavalier attitude towards an amoral act like lying under oath. This event caused Phil to reflect on his faith and he realized he no longer had a relationship with God. He returned to the church to become an active member of the Catholic community and developed a deep connection to the Eucharist because of his closeness to God through the sacrament.

Phil tries to spread Catholic Social Teaching through his labor work and believes it is the best kept secret about the church. He believes work is ubiquitous and touches everyone, therefore we should work to make jobs decent and dignified. The Church is the antidote to the world and gives us the ability to look around and see good people. Work also gives us the ability to carry out our obligation to make the earth better.

Phil’s role at the APWU is to serve as executive assistant to the president, support collective bargaining, and act as a union advocate in arbitration among other jobs. Phil is active in the Knights of Columbus and is an usher at the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

 

The Pandemic, the Economic Freeze, and the American Worker

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Aside from the elderly and retired who are most likely to suffer fatal complications, the covid-19 pandemic and its economic consequences have struck no segment of American society harder than the American working class. It was a grim irony, therefore, that federal social distancing guidelines expired quietly on May 1, the Feast of St Joseph the Worker – because for American workers, the hurt is just beginning. The guidelines were replaced by a set of recommendations to governors of the various states, who must make the decision which enterprises remain closed in the interest of public safety and which are permitted to reopen in the interest of economic recovery.

How have workers been specially impacted by covid-19? On the one hand are several categories of workers who remain on the job and face excessive risk of exposure to the virus. Bus drivers, supermarket cashiers, and especially health care workers continue to serve the public and consequently risk infection every time they greet a passenger, accept a payment or move a patient. On the other are those who work in crowded production and distribution facilities, from meatpacking plants to Amazon distribution warehouses. Though not exposed to the public, the infection of a single worker can rapidly spread across the shopfloor – as has been witnessed repeatedly at pork and chicken processing facilities. Despite calls from trade unions and occupational health experts, OSHA has made no effort to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard covering covid-19 safety hazards in the workplace, leaving workers on their own. Unions like the UFCW (groceries and meatpacking), SEIU and NNU (health care), and ATU and TWU (mass transit) are among those who represent large numbers of workers at elevated risk of infection.

On the other hand are tens of millions of workers who have been forcibly idled by the shutdown. As of the end of April, some 30 million workers had filed for unemployment benefits, with the official unemployment rate nearing 15% (the true rate is almost certainly far higher, as this number does not include those who have given up looking for work out of despair). Layoffs and furloughs have disproportionately fallen on the working classes: many college graduates who usually work in offices have transitioned to doing their jobs from home via the internet, but that’s not available to a high school graduate working in a factory or restaurant. While about 8% of college graduates are reported as unemployed, about one in five of those with a high school diploma or less have been sidelined. The impact has been especially hard on those employed by airlines, hotels, food service, and entertainment venues, where most of the jobs vanished overnight. Unions such as UNITE HERE (hotels and food service), ALPA and AFA (airlines), and IATSE, AFM and Actors’ Equity (entertainment) are among those who represent large numbers of workers who have been furloughed and face elevated risk of economic ruin.

While the government was abysmally slow in preparing for covid-19 to reach our shores during the weeks after it was reported spreading in Wuhan, Congress and the President moved surprisingly quickly to vote economic relief for the first phase of the economic crisis. While some of the funds approved through the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) followed the European model of subsidizing firms to retain idled employees – the PPP or Paycheck Protection Program – the bulk was distributed in individual payments to taxpayers and/or through the unemployment insurance (UI) system. Unemployment benefit coverage was expanded to cover large categories of workers who aren’t usually eligible because they don’t pay into the UI system, such as Uber drivers who are classified as independent contractors or employees of Catholic Churches and schools.

But the relief package does nothing to replace employer-paid health insurance, leaving millions of workers at risk of losing access to health care. It still leaves significant numbers of workers unprotected and potentially destitute, especially the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants in our farms and kitchens who perform some of the economy’s least desirable work at low wages in the best of times. And perhaps most gravely, the income supports that do exist were set to expire during the Summer, anticipating a short “V-shaped” recession with a rapid economic rebound. It’s becoming clearer that this will almost certainly not be the case. This leaves American workers in a bind, balancing a risk of the coronavirus if they return to their place of work with a guaranteed loss of necessary income and health insurance if they do not.

Of course, some of those jobs will be gone in any event. With the coronavirus still killing 2,000 people a day, many Americans will shy away from shopping centers, hotels, bars and theatres for some time to come. We can expect major economic dislocation as the weaker retailers and restaurants close their doors forever, and double-digit unemployment enduring into 2021 at least.

The Catholic Labor Network will continue to advocate for “the least of these brothers and sisters” (Matt 25) through this terrible health crisis and year of economic agony. We will work with the nation’s trade unions to rebuild as the recovery proceeds, and promote safer workplaces that limit worker exposure to covid-19. We believe that the desperate need for a national paid sick leave policy has become clear to all, so that workers will no longer have to choose between feeding their families and infecting their colleagues with a communicable disease. And we anticipate that a major new jobs program will be on the agenda in 2021. Dare we dream, as the fifth anniversary of Laudato Si approaches, that a Green New Deal with a just transition for workers currently employed in the carbon economy is on the horizon?

A Personal & Brief History of the Founding of the Catholic Labor Network

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On May 1, 2020 — the Feast of St Joseph the Worker — Fr. Sinclair Oubre presented A Personal & Brief History of the Founding of the Catholic Labor Network to a national audience via Zoom. In response to requests by listeners, here is the text of his address:

 

The personal roots of the Catholic Labor Network are found in my hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. This was a town where the word “union” was not a dirty word, and to be in a union was a source of pride. Though there had been many challenging strikes, the union families knew that though these had been hard time, the wages, pension, and healthcare benefits significantly outpaced those of their relatives in Louisiana.

Each union family knew that these wages and benefits were not gifts given by the refineries and construction companies, but were hard won union victories through collective bargaining, and sometimes by withholding each worker’s labor so as to demonstrate how serious the workers were.

In addition, Port Arthur and Southeast Texas had strong apprenticeship programs that trained the next generation of craftsmen. These apprenticeship programs supported a system where the individual craftsman’s welfare was directly tied to the welfare of his or her fellow union workers, and the welfare of their union.

In my own family, my great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, and my two uncles on my father’s side were all members of the Carpenter’s Union. Later, my father became a member of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union when he began working at the Texaco Refinery. In my high school graduating class, many of my classmates joined pipefitter, boilermaker, electrician, carpenter, or plumber apprentice programs. Others were hired directly into the plants as laborers, and eventually rose to be operators. All being members of the oil workers union. So, the roots of the Catholic Labor Network lie in my family’s union experience, and the tremendous benefits the union provided to my working class classmates in our parochial schools.

The personal roots of the Catholic Labor Network are also tied to a happenstance event that occurred at the University of St. Thomas’ Student Government Office. In 1978, while studying as a seminarian for the Diocese of Beaumont at St. Mary Seminary and the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, I was elected to the University Student Government Association. Passing through the SGA office in what is today Crooker Center, I picked up a copy of a booklet entitled: “On the Condition of Labor” by Pope Leo XIII. I started thumbing through it, and I was astounded that at the end of the 19th century, a pope wrote a strong critique of Marxist socialism and free market capitalism, while offering a third way that promoted private property, subsidiarity, the common good, and the dignity of the human person. This was very different from the montages that we were making in religion class at my Catholic high school. If I was reading this instead of the pablum that was being served up, I would have paid more attention in class. This set me on a course of using every elective I had as an undergraduate to take political science courses that focused on Catholic Social Teaching and work.

In 1978, I became an honors philosophy student at The Catholic University of America. While there, I was blessed to be taken under the wing by Don Slaiman, a Jewish socialist who worked in the Organizing Department of the AFL-CIO. He worked hard to mentor young men and women who were interested in the labor movement. He introduced me to Frontlash, the AFL-CIO’s outreach program to college students. Soon after I joined Frontlash, Jessica Smith became the director, and she led the organization in many dynamic ways. She is still a close friend, and an assistant to the president of the American Federation of Teachers. Through Frontlash, I was able to make a number of lasting labor connections that led to other connections later in life.

Frontlash also made it possible for me to be a summer intern with the International Association of Machinists Union. During the summer, I worked in the political action committee office. IAM President William Winpisinger backed Ted Kennedy’s primary run against President Carter. This allowed me to be a go-fer at the Washington, D.C. Mayflower Hotel where all the pre-1980 Democratic Convention committee hearings were held.

All these experiences helped me to develop many strong local and national labor ties. Being ordained to the priesthood in 1986, I soon began a volunteer ministry to seafarers calling at our ports, and also I began to attend the Sabine Area Central Labor Council meetings. Through these meetings, I began to meet the business agents and officers from our different unions, and found them very welcoming. I also began to learn more about a Chicago priest named Msgr. George Higgins. For years, I had seen his column “The Yardstick” appear in our local diocesan newspaper. Articles about the grape and lettuce boycotts, the formation of the United Farm Workers, and many other labor issues were chronicled in Msgr. Higgins’ column in our bi-weekly diocesan newspaper.

I do not remember how, but I became aware that a number of theological faculties including Catholic University, the Dominican House of Studies and Oblate College were sponsors with the AFL-CIO in a conference entitled: A Dialogue Between The Religious and Labor Community on Social and Ethical Concerns in Changing Economy. At this January, 1989 program were Catholic leaders like Archbishop Weakland, Fr. William Byron, S.J., Fr. Ed Boyle, S.J., Sr. Nancy Sylvester, and Msgr. George Higgins.The conference addressed mutual labor and religion issues like: Human rights in the workplace, Living/just family wage, Plant closings, Organizing unions a moral right, and what can be done through Religion-Labor understanding and cooperation.

This conference was followed by a second conference in 1991, to observe the 100th Anniversary Rerum Novarum. In June of 1991, religious organizations and the AFL-CIO hosted in Atlanta: On the Condition of Workers in 1991: A Continuation of the Dialogue Between the Religious Community and Organized Labor. In the opening plenary session, Bishop John McCarthy, then bishop of Austin, Texas, wove a story of the how socio-economic conditions had frayed the ties between Catholic seminarians and unions.

In the 1920’s, an Irish boy’s father was in the union. In addition, all his uncles were union members. That boy fought in World War II, and because of the GI Bill was able to go to college, and thereby move into a white collar job. His son went to a better university, and became a lawyer or doctor. In addition, he became more affluent and had no contact with labor unions. This man then meets with his Pastor at the country club, who also has had no experience with unions either. Because the pastor’s grandfather had been a union member, but his father went to college on the GI Bill, and he had lived in the suburbs with his father working in an office. The affluent Catholic parishioner with is suburban well educated pastor had forgotten what labor did to put them where they were. Unions were just “Things that were important in the past, but were no longer necessary in the modern world.”

In 1993, Msgr. George Higgins with the assistance of William Bole published, Organized Labor and the Church: Reflections of a “Labor Priest.” This book gave me a great insight into Msgr. Higgins, and the elaborate and active relationship that had existed in the United States Catholic Church and the labor movement. In this book, I was introduced to the great Msgr. John A. Ryan, and Msgr. Reynold Hillenbrand, Fr. Raymond McGowan, and many other priests who dedicated a significant amount of their priestly ministry to promoting our Catholic Social teaching, especially as it related to worker and unions.

Reading Higgins’ reflections, I learned that there had been a strong relationship between the US bishops and labor, that there had been labor schools in hundreds of parishes, and parish priests were actively engaged in both helping to organize their workers into unions, while simultaneously working to stymie efforts by communist union members to take over the locals. This was such a different environment from what I had grown up in Port Arthur, where we could be having a knock-down-drag-out strike at Texaco that could last months, with about 20% of our parish men on the picket line, and 20% locked in the plant, and nary a word was spoken from the pulpit about the labor/management clash that was dividing our community.

Finally, by 1995, Decatur, Illinois had become the battleground for the future of industrial and manufacturing unions. In this one city, Staley had locked out its workers, and Bridgestone/Firestone and Caterpillar had forced its workforce out on strike because of demands for major contract concessions. In response, “Road Warriors” traveled throughout the country attending labor union and central labor council meetings.

One group came to Port Arthur, and showed a video and made a presentation at the Sabine Area Central Labor Council. In that video, a Decatur parish priest, Fr. Martin Mangan, was pepper sprayed during a sit-down strike at Staley’s main gate. Being the chaplain to the central labor council, and by now a member of the Seafarers International Union, and having a desire to see the old alliance between the US Catholic Church and America’s union movement reestablished, I decided that on my motorcycle ride home from my canon law studies at Catholic University that summer, I would stop off, and visit this priest, and find out how does one do “Labor Priest.”

I cold called Fr. Martin, and he welcomed me to stop by at the end of July. When we sat down at a local restaurant, I was all ready to ask Fr. Martin how to be a labor priest, but before the words got out of my mouth, he was asking me how to be a labor priest. It was apparent that if there ever had been a manual on how to be a labor priest, it had long since been lost.

Also in the early 1990’s, I met an ex-Franciscan brother, Steve Donahue at a Central Labor Council picnic. He was working for SEIU Local 100 out of New Orleans, and doing organizing work. I was so excited to meet someone trying to live the spirit of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, I struck up a friendship with him and his fellow Baton Rouge Catholic Worker, Tim Vining.

I also came to learn that there was a prison chaplain named Fr. Don Brooks in Tulsa, Oklahoma who was active with local unions. There was also Msgr. Charles Rice of Pittsburgh, Jack Egan of Chicago, Ed Boyle, S.J. of the Boston Catholic Labor Guild, Mary Priniski, and there was Deacon Bob Miller, who worked for the AFL-CIO as its United Way liaison. But there was no single, place where clergy, religious, Catholic Workers, or just Catholic union members could work together to continue the Catholic/Labor cooperation of the past. It is important to note that Msgr. Higgins had retired from the USCC, and though there continued to be an office of social justice, there was no one who specifically had the labor portfolio.

To both give spiritual support to the dispersed group of Catholic labor ministers, to promote Catholic Social Teaching relating to worker and unions, and to be a sign of solidarity with the striking and locked out workers in Decatur, I suggested to Fr. Martin that we hold a meeting in Decatur. Dates were set for March of 1996. Union families opened their doors to the attendees, and for three days, the 30 or so participants learned about the three Decatur labor struggles; they learned what each person was doing in their own corner of the country; and they received a lesson on the Labor Priest through a panel of people who lived it: John Cort, Msgr. George Higgins, Msgr. Charles Egan, and Fr. Ed Boyle, S.J.

The results of this first meeting were the establishment of a loose affiliation of Catholic clergy, religious and laity who promoted Catholic Social Teachings relating to work and unions, and the building and launching of a web page: catholiclabor.org.

In 2001, the Catholic Labor Network was invited to host a wrap-around seminar at the USCCB Catholic Social Ministry Gathering. I was attending a Interfaith Worker Justice Board Meeting with Tom Shellabarger on September 11, 2001. Tom invited me to attend a USCCB planning meeting for the 2002 CSMG. The committee approved CLN being part of the wrap-around sessions. From 2002 to the present, CLN has met on the Saturday of the CSMG. The program consisted of:

      • Mass or morning prayer
      • Discussion on the state of Church/Labor Questions
      • Speakers
      • Lunch with a keynote speaker
      • And in more recent years, it is followed by the Administrative Board’s meeting

With the hard work of Clayton, first as a volunteer director, and later as a paid director, the Catholic Labor Network has grown to be the only Catholic association that is completely dedicated to promoting our CST regarding workers and unions, and to rebuild the classic Catholic/Labor coalition.

I have a concern about the ongoing support among the US bishops regarding their strong and clear support for the right of workers to organize in secular and church institutions as laid out in the 1986 pastoral Economic Justice for All. There have been some worrying trends:

Catholic Hospitals not supporting directive #7 in the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services; the erosion disappearance of diocesan building guidelines that considered collective bargaining as a value when bidding contracts; disturbing instances were dioceses have unilaterally dissolved their collective bargaining agreements with their unions.